Goodbye My Lover
by xBangs-McCoyx
Summary: Or, five times Kelly thinks about visiting Ryan in prison. Not very angsty, but there's a teeny bit snuck in.


I keep re-watching season three, and I keep re-falling in love with the Ryan/Kelly relationship.

They are just so damn cute together!

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1.

The first time Kelly thinks about visiting Ryan is the second after she hears he's in jail. Actually, it's the second after she watches the video on Youtube. She can picture everything- What she's going to wear (That dress she found in the back of her closet that she hasn't worn for three months, and those heels the just ordered online a few days ago), how he's going to look (Probably sleep deprived, old, kind of scared), even what the prisons going to be like (Thanks to those Law and Order episodes she's been watching lately). She's really, really excited. Finally. A chance to show him what a mistake he really made. A chance to rub her new relationship in his face (Although she's already been doing that). She thinks, but only for a second, that maybe she shouldn't talk about Darryl, because Ryan's already going through enough.

But then she remembers that it's Ryan Howard, and he broke her heart, and he's going to have to deal.

2.

The second time Kelly thinks about visiting Ryan is when she's in the kitchen, trying to cut up potatoes and watch Americas Next Top Model at the same time. She's never actually told anyone, but she's kind of a good cook. A commercial comes on for Army Wives, and she can only hear part of it because of the noise her fridge makes, but the blond one is talking about how she's going to stick with her husband no matter what. Kelly first thinks what it would be like if Ryan was in the army. But they're not even dating anymore, and so she finishes cutting the potatoes and changes the channel.

Later that night, as she's watching a midnight CSI marathon (Darryl got her hooked, but she really only watches to make sure Grissom and Sara end up together), she wonders if she ever cooked for Ryan.

3.

The third time Kelly thinks about visiting Ryan is at work. She's sitting at her desk, jabbering on the phone to some customer, while really just trying to listen to what Michael and Holly are saying. She finishes talking, hangs up the phone, and creeps over to the divider so she can hear better. Michael mentions something about prison, and Kelly slinks back to her desk before she can hear the rest. She's quiet for the rest of the day, and she knows everyone else thinks somethings wrong, because normally she's the one blabbering in the break room, but not today.

She finds that she misses Toby, because he would always listen to her. She tried talking to Holly the other day, but it wasn't the same because Toby was a really great listener, and Holly's more of a talker. Kelly's a talker too, and she's found that two talkers don't go well together. She considers talking to Pam for a second, but then she thinks about how happy Pam and Jim seem together. She thinks about how she has a fairly good relationship right now, and about how she should be happy too.

But she's not.

4.

The fourth time Kelly thinks about visiting Ryan is when she goes to see _Mamma Mia_ with her friend Brianna. She's not sure how it happens, but one minute she's humming along to 'Dancing Queen' and the next she's burying her head in the popcorn. The movie ends and Brianna's going on and on about how cute her wedding dress was, and just how _fantastic_ the movie was. Kelly figures that this is what the other side of a one-sided conversation feels like.

When she gets home, Brianna's still talking, and Kelly finally gets away by saying she has to go back to work. She doesn't care that it's ten o'clock at night, or that it's a Saturday. It shuts her up, and Brianna walks away with a small wave. Kelly falls asleep almost immediately, zonked out on her new pink and gold bedspread.

5.

The fifth time Kelly thinks about visiting Ryan is when she's driving up to visit her cousin in Maine. She finally convinced Michael to let her have a week off, and she's guessing no one else is even going to notice she's gone. She's tapping her fingers against the wheel, stuck in traffic when it's like a light bulb goes off over her head. She figures she has enough time to make a quick pit stop, so she pulls off the highway and into the city. She finds it a little weird that she's so conveniently close to the jail, but she still parks nearly five blocks away, so she has time to calm her nerves. Walking five blocks certainly does calm her down, and by the time she gets there she feels almost like she's going to a party. Which is kind of weird, but she goes with it. Anything to stop the shaking.

It's a lot different from the Law and Order jails, and as she waits the tiny little room, she guesses that's because Law and Order is for hardened criminals, and as far as she knows Ryan's never killed anybody.

One of the guards leads her to another room, and he motions for her to sit down at the table. She does, hoping that the weird coloring on the sides is just dust. She taps her fingernails on the wood, feeling just a bit like Gabrielle in Desperate Housewives, when she goes to visit Carlos after he beats up the gay plumber. She only has to wait a few minutes before Ryan comes is, looking a bit confused when he sees her.

"Hey." He says, sitting down like nothing ever happened.

"Hey." She nods, unsure of what to say next. Everything that she's thought about in the past few days just melts away, and she wants to jump up and give him a hug and say that everything's going to be okay.

But she doesn't. She can't. She feels incapable of saying anything else.

He stares at her, his frown disappearing. He seems to be waiting for her to say something.

She begins to wonder what the time limit is. She can't tell whether she's been her for a few minutes, or hours. It feels like days to her.

"So," She says finally, breaking the very awkward silence. "Are you the belle of the ball?"

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You like?


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